The Reindeer Girl (7 page)

Chapter Seven

Lotta lay warmly wrapped up in the
lavvu
, watching the dying embers of the fire. She knew she ought to go back to sleep – it would be another long day tomorrow. But she just couldn’t. She had slept a little earlier in the night, worn out from crying, but then she’d woken again.

Flower was out there somewhere. And Karl was tied up to one of the trees, just outside the
lavvu
, hungry and miserable. She and Erika had tried to get him to take some grain, but he’d hardly had any of it. He wanted to feed from his mother, like he always did. And he didn’t understand where she had gone.

If they had been with the rest of the female reindeer, Lotta and Erika could have tried to milk one of them and fed
the milk to Karl. But here they had no milk to give him at all. And it would take them at least three more days to reach the calving grounds. Karl wouldn’t last that long without food.

Lotta sniffed and turned over, listening to the snuffles and soft sighs as the rest of her family slept. Then she heard a plaintive honking noise, and her breath caught in a sob. That was Karl, outside, calling hungrily for his mother.

It was no good. She couldn’t leave him out there like this. Even if he did make it to the calving grounds, it would be hard to find a mother reindeer who would feed him as well as her own calf, and they would all be skittish and hard to milk now they had their new babies.

Lotta couldn’t let him fade away.
Her pappa had told her to look after Flower and Karl. She couldn’t let them all down. She got up carefully, climbing over Erika and Nils and her aunt, and making for the door. The dogs were sleeping, too, and although Cam opened one eye to look at her, Lotta put her finger to her lips, and he didn’t bark.

Lotta shrugged on her big coat and her boots, binding them up with practised speed. She smiled wryly to herself, thinking how different this was from eight days ago, when she hadn’t even known how to put them on. Then she unlaced the door of the
lavvu
, stepping out into the night cold.

Karl was a pale little shape in the darkness, and he whimpered and groaned as he heard her coming.

“I know,” Lotta whispered. “It’s all right. We’re going to look for her. I know they said we mustn’t, but you’ll die if we don’t find her.” She wrapped her arms around the little calf’s neck. “I think this might be why I’m here. I’ve got to find your mother and rescue you both.”

She started to untie the woven reindeer-leather rope that was fastening him to the tree, and then thought for a minute. She needed some supplies. They might be away for a good few hours, and she would need food. It seemed unfair, when Karl
would be starving, but she would be no good to him if she couldn’t keep going, and in this cold, food was necessary. And perhaps she had better bring a knife, just in case. Johan had told her that he had seen bears in these woods, and she remembered Oldeforeldre talking about wolves.

She crept back into the
lavvu
, looking for a knife to borrow. She was searching around by the cooking pots at the edge of the fire, when a hand closed round her foot. Lotta strangled a scream, stuffing her hand into her mouth.

“What are you doing?” Erika whispered. “Why are you up?”

“I’m going to find Flower,” Lotta whispered back. “I can’t let Karl starve.”

“You can’t!” Erika hissed. “Not on your own!”

Lotta shook her head stubbornly. “I’m going to. I’m not going to abandon them.”

Erika sat up. “I’m coming with you then. I want to find her, too.”

Lotta nodded. “All right. Get some food, can you? I’m just finding a knife.”

“Bring one for me. And I’d better give the dogs something,” Erika added. “Otherwise they might follow us.” She laid a little dried meat in front of the four dogs and whispered, “Shhh…”

The two girls crept out, put on their skis and untied Karl.

“We might have to carry him some of the way,” Lotta said, as they set off through the trees. “But I want to get him and Flower back together as soon as we can. We can’t leave him at the camp.”

It was lucky that both girls had slept
in the daytime. Lotta felt wide awake now that they had decided on a plan. The moon was full and bright, and she could quite easily see the tracks of the hundreds of reindeer in the snow, with the marks of the sledge runners and skis here and there.

“We can’t miss our way,” she said to Erika, smiling with relief. “It’s so clear.” Erika nodded. “I know – and the sun is rising earlier and earlier now it’s springtime. It shouldn’t be more than two or three hours that we’re walking in the dark. We might even end up going faster than all of us together were earlier on, you know. The snow’s harder in the cold of the night, and we haven’t got to keep stopping to chase back any stragglers.”

The girls strode out strongly, and even Karl seemed glad to be walking, as though
he knew they were going back to find his mother. Lotta had brought a little grain for him, but she was hoping that they’d find Flower soon so that they wouldn’t need it.

It was just as the sun was rising, and the light was creeping through the trees, that they came to the frozen river. Erika was sure they had crossed it late in the afternoon of the previous day, when Lotta had been asleep.

“It
is
melting,” Erika said, a little anxiously. “I can hear it, the water flowing just under the ice crust.”

“Is it safe to cross?” Lotta asked, testing it with her ski.

“I think it is for now. But maybe not for much longer.” Erika set out quickly over the ice, and Lotta followed, trying not to
hear the creaks and cracking noises as she and Karl crossed the river.

As Lotta looked back, she could see the bright sun shining on the river ice. Erika was right. They didn’t have long before it melted.

They hurried on, trying to go faster now, taking it in turns to carry Karl, who was getting wobbly on his legs. Every few minutes they stopped for a rest, and to call out for Flower. Karl joined in, honking his sad, hungry cries.

They had been going for about another hour when Lotta stopped to call out again. “Flower! Where are you? Flower!” She’d grown so used to shouting that she almost went on without really listening for an answer. But suddenly she felt Karl wriggle in her arms.

“What is it? Do you want to get down?”

Karl wriggled again, snorting and honking, and Lotta gasped. He had heard something, she was sure of it.

“Is he all right?” Erika asked, but Lotta shushed her.

“Listen!”

And there it was – only a little way off the beaten trail of hoofprints, in amongst the trees. A loud, sharp whinnying sound.

They had found her.

Chapter Eight

“Flower!” Lotta cried, putting Karl down and pulling off her skis so she could hurry through the trees without tangling them up. “You’re here!”

“She’s not hurt is she?” Erika gasped, following her into the trees.

“I don’t think so.” Lotta stroked Flower’s nose, smiling as the reindeer snuffled at her fingers. “Oh, but she’s stuck. Poor Flower, how did you manage that? Were you hungry? Did you go looking for that nice lichen on the trees?”

Flower had worked her way into a clump of trees and somehow managed to get her thick winter coat wrapped up in the spiny branches of a young sapling. She was completely tangled.

“She must have seen all that lichen and wandered off for a snack,” Erika said,
trying to pull the twigs out of Flower’s fur. “Then she got herself all caught up, and couldn’t follow us.”

“I’m so glad we found her,” Lotta murmured, yanking at the branches. “There! Come on, Flower! Pull!”

The two girls backed away, coaxing Flower to follow them. At first, the reindeer didn’t seem to realize that she was free. She shook herself suspiciously, antlers swaying, and then looked down in surprise. All at once she understood that she could move and she gave a great leap, bursting out into the open. She stood there in the snow, her sides heaving and her eyes wild. But then she saw Karl, and she nuzzled at him delightedly.

The little reindeer allowed himself to be sniffed and licked all over, and then
he ducked determinedly underneath his mother and started to feed.

Lotta watched him, smiling to herself, and then she hugged Erika. “We did it! Look at them, they’re both safe.”

Erika nodded. “I know. And it is wonderful. But we have to get back, Lotta.” She was looking along the trail, a serious expression on her face, nothing like her usual teasing grin.

Lotta swallowed. She had forgotten. “The river?”

“Mmmm. I’m worried that if we leave it much longer, we won’t be able to cross back over. And then we’ll lose the trail.”

Lotta glanced down at Karl, who was still feeding. He didn’t look as though he wanted to stop any time soon. “He’s so hungry…” she said. “We can’t
make him go on just yet.”

But Flower was sniffing at the air, turning her head from side to side. She looked as worried as the girls, and then she turned and began to nose gently at Karl, pushing him away.

He honked crossly and tried to keep feeding, but Flower began to walk off down the trail, and he stumbled after her.

“She knows!” Lotta stared at Flower. “Did you see that? She knows we need to keep going!”

“Maybe she can smell the river?” Erika suggested, hurriedly putting her skis back on. “It isn’t that far away, and reindeer have amazing noses. She might even be able to tell that the ice is melting. We’d better be quick.”

Despite the worry about the thaw,
Lotta couldn’t help smiling as they made their way back through the forest. The sunlight was coming through the trees in bright shafts, and the place seemed to be suddenly alive with birds and tiny creatures.

Although the snow was softening underfoot, they could still easily see the tracks of the herd, so there was no danger of getting lost. Karl seemed to have perked up, even though he’d only had a quick feed, and he was dancing around Flower in circles. He reminded Lotta of a puppy, little and silly, with feet that were too big for him.

But as they came closer to the river, the girls grew quieter, listening for the sound of water. At last they came out through the trees to the riverbank, and stared in
dismay at the sheet of ice they had walked over only three hours before.

It wasn’t there any more. Now a jagged channel was running down the middle of the river – dark, fast-flowing water, dotted with huge chunks of ice. Lotta stepped up to the edge and peered over. The far bank seemed a lot further away than it had earlier on.

Erika kicked angrily at the snow with the point of her ski. “We can’t cross here.”

“Maybe there’s a place further up. Somewhere we could just jump across the gap…” Lotta said, but her cousin shook her head.

“No, Lotta. Think! The meltwater is coming down from the mountains further up the river, isn’t it? It’ll be worse upstream. We’ll have to find a place to cross downstream.” Erika looked up and down the river, and Lotta gulped, trying to keep calm. She hadn’t felt so out of place in this world since the first morning she’d found herself here. She just didn’t know what to do.

“We won’t know the way back…” she whispered.

“We’ll find it somehow.” Erika put an
arm round her shoulder. “Hey! Flower!”

The mother reindeer had been standing next to them, staring at the water, but now she turned and began to walk slowly but confidently away along the riverbank.

“Flower, come here!” Erika called, but Lotta caught her arm.

“Maybe we should follow her, Erika. She knows the way better than we do, doesn’t she?”

The Sami herders didn’t so much lead the reindeer as follow them, Lotta had realized during her time here. The reindeer knew where they were supposed to be going – it was more a case of keeping them all together, and protecting them on the way. The herd always returned to its traditional calving grounds and the same summer pastures. But sometimes they
had to use different routes, depending on the weather.

“She seems to know where she’s going,” Lotta said, undoing her skis. Erika took hers off, too, and they began to follow Flower and Karl. “It’s as if we’ve rescued her, and now she’s going to help us.”

They walked on down the riverbank, carrying their skis as they wove in and out of the trees, until Flower suddenly stopped. The river had widened out, and it didn’t seem to be flowing quite as fast. The chunks of ice floated lazily by, and Lotta was sure she saw a fish dart past, too.

She thought that Flower had just stopped to drink, and the reindeer did lean down for a few mouthfuls of water. But then she stepped closer to the river,
and into the shallow water just below the bank.

“She’s going to cross!” Lotta gasped. Even though the river seemed wider and shallower here, now she came close it still looked frightening. The water was swirling by so fast, and she couldn’t tell how deep it was.

Flower went deeper into the water, so that it was halfway up her legs, but Karl and the girls didn’t follow her. They stood huddled on the bank, staring after her miserably. The mother reindeer stopped, realizing that her baby wasn’t with her, and turned round to eye them all. Lotta was sure that if she could talk she would have told them to hurry up and get on with it. But then she stepped delicately over to the bank and bumped Karl with
her nose, trying to encourage him into the water. The calf squealed, and jumped back. He’d never seen anything like the river before, and he didn’t want to be in it.

“I think we have to go with her,” Lotta said nervously. “She knows what she’s doing. If she thinks it’s safe for Karl, it should be safe for us, too.”

“I suppose so…” Erika muttered. “Take off your boots and your coat. We’ll bundle them up, and try and keep them out of the water. I can’t tell how deep it is, but if we hold them up, we should be able to keep them dry.”

Lotta nodded, shivering as she shrugged off her thick coat, and undid her boots. Her feet began to hurt as soon as she put them down in the snow. The water was going to be deathly cold.

Karl was still darting about on the bank, clearly anxious to reach his mother, but frightened of the rushing river.

Lotta looked at him. “Erika, can you take my things, and I’ll carry Karl? He’s never going to go in the water, is he?”

Erika nodded. “I’m not sure I am, either,” she muttered, with a little shiver.

Lotta passed over her coat bundle and her skis, and picked Karl up. He struggled madly for a moment, but then Flower reached over and nipped at his ear with her teeth. Lotta thought she was probably telling him to behave. Flower stood in the water, just below the bank, looking from Lotta to Erika, as though she was making sure they were ready.

“Grab her antlers,” Lotta said, looking at the swirling water. She tucked Karl
tightly under her arm, and gripped on to Flower’s antlers, grateful that she hadn’t shed them yet.

With both girls holding on, Flower stepped forward into the water, and the girls followed, gasping as the cold hit them. The river was swollen with meltwater, and it was flowing so fast. Lotta felt herself being pushed hard against Flower’s side by the strength of the rushing water. It was getting deeper and deeper, and as they reached the middle of the river it was up to Lotta’s waist.

Karl wriggled and squealed as the cold water soaked his dangling legs, but thankfully he didn’t try to leap away. Lotta wasn’t sure she’d have been able to catch him.

Flower walked slowly, determinedly on, planting her strong hooves firmly on the riverbed, and hauling the girls with her, until at last they scrambled out on the other side. The reindeer then shook herself energetically all over them.

Lotta put Karl down gently. Her arms were aching from the effort of holding him so tightly against the pull of the river. Flower leaned down to nuzzle at her baby,
and he snuggled against her.

“I wish I could just shake myself dry,” Erika said, her teeth chattering violently as she tried to wring out the skirts of her
gakti
.

Lotta nodded. At least their reindeer-skin leggings had kept out almost all of the water. They were damp, but not soaked like the wool cloth of her tunic. She pushed her numb, icy feet into her boots, and gratefully dragged on her coat. Then both girls leaned against Flower, shaking with cold, and the fear that they’d had to hold back as they crossed the river.